Monday, July 7, 2008

Opinion, anyone?

I realize that I am bound to pass on some of my opinionatedness to my children. There's just no escaping it. But don't you think that this is a little too much?As we are driving away from Aunt Reenie's house...Moses: I don't want to turn left, I just want to turn right!Mommy: But if we turn right then we will be going away from our house and we need to go back home.Moses: No left! Just right!Mommy: (realizing that there are NO right turns all the way home but thankfully we have to take a detour that does give us a couple right turns) Ummm...OK, how about first we make a few lefts and then a some rights.Moses: NOOOO!!!! Only one right!We eventually do take one right (and one other that we successfully distract him from noticing) and he laughs and shouts with jubilation.

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Our Grand Tour

In September of 2016 John was invited to spend a year at Oxford University as a Visiting Research Scholar and work on his sabbatical project: "Unlocking the Summa - A commentary on the Summa Theologiae." All eight of us will be winging our way to England in August of 2017. We will be in England until June, 2018 (10 months for those who don't like math). As you can imagine - we are overwhelmed with gratitude and excitement at this prospect and are busily preparing for our Grand Tour.

Loves and Loveletts

Lex - somewhere in her mid-30's. Homeschooling mom as well as a homeschool graduate. Lives in a little Burg in the Appalachian mountains but will always have a little Michigan inside her. Mother of 6 that were born within 9 years of each other. Lover of audiobooks, praying through singing, birding, asparagus patches, and photographing kids. Grateful for the gift of community - the beauty, the ugly and the mediocre. Follower of Christ.

John - Late 30's Theology Professor, aka The Love Doctor. Always burning the candle at both ends he works hard during the day to form the future of Catholic priests and in the early mornings and evenings he carts children to and from activities and makes his wife mean G&Ts. Evangelization, providing music for Mass and adoration, sharing insights from St. Thomas Aquinas are what he's most known for in his professional life. Doing the dishes every night, dropping everything to meet us in the ER, and fixing the constant rotation of things the kids break are what he's most popular for here at home.

Anthony - Thirteen. Geography and grammar are where he shines academically - both requiring a precision that Anthony has a hard time not overusing. He enjoys playing soccer as often as possible and he stands out on his team as being a guy with his head and his body in the game - attentive and thinking. He works hard on living with equanimity as an introvert in a crowded, loud, busy home.

Rosie - Ten. Leader of "The Tribe": the three loveletts that were born within 2.5 years. She is a hard worker in school and rarely requires my help, just plugs along and gets her stuff done. She takes a lot of art classes and keeps a nature journal and I love what she is able to observe and translate through a pencil. She loves to make up all sorts of games and fun pretends for the younger member of the family. Everyone should be so lucky as to have a Rosie.

Thomas - Nine and all E. Energetic, enthusiastic, eager, excitable, extroverted, exhilarated and engaged. The only trouble we have with Thomas is that it's hard to keep him busy enough - he has an appetite for life that can be overwhelming! He's been this way ever since he mastered crawling. He was off and the rest is history. Anthony wrote this limerick about Thomas this year.

My brother is energetic

His body is super frenetic

He yells and he jumps

and he gives us all bumps

But Thomas is never pathetic.

This is all true.

Cecilia - Eight. Cece is such a great "smack-dabber". Smack-dab in the middle of the family and always wanting to be part of the team. She is generous, inclusive and positive. We often call her excited, positive, can-do presence, "The Power of Positive-Ce". She has none of her older sister's innate sense of fashion and often rollicks around in outfits that make me question her ability to see colors. And patterns. And cleanliness.

Catherine - 5 going on 30. Probably the most thoughtful and caring person in the house. She is totally normal when it comes to wanting to run with the big kids and "do it myself" and other such developmental standards. What sets her apart in our family is that she is so tuned into how other people are feeling and how her actions effect them. When she throws a fit (which she still does occasionally) she is the only child to offer unprompted apologies and amends. She is our sunshine.

Gloria - 3 and THE BABY. She is well ensconced in her role - having no desire or inclination to reliquish her tyrannical hold on all the people older then her. We do her bidding and she entertains us by singing herself little songs, letting us tickle her and having big beautiful eyes and super long eyelashes.

"Whether she is a mother in the home, or occupies a place in the limelight of public life, or behind cloistered walls, she must be the handmaid of the Lord everywhere ... Were each woman an image of the Mother of God, a Spouse of Christ, an apostle of the Divine Heart, then each would fulfill her feminine vocation no matter what conditions she live in and what worldly activity absorbed her." - St. Edith Stein